Smile
by Eleven Eleven
Summary: She smiles. It’s the first he’s seen in months. For now, that’s all that matters.


A/N. I'm back, after...who knows how long. It's beside the point anyway. The point is, I've recently fallen in love with J/C all over again. Previously, I had started to move towards Lane/Dave in the Gilmore Girls category, but then I watched a few good old IaHB episodes, and realised again, why they're the best couple! This is my rather...contrived attempt to write something deep and meaningful.  
  
Disclaimer- I've been ignoring these in my GG fic. No one I write about belongs to me. Does anyone get any satisfaction in reading a writer's acknowledgement that they don't actually own the characters they write about?  
  
As always, thanks to my beta reader, MM.  
  
Smile  
  
She smiles. It's the first he's seen in months. Her lips barely stretch, and there is no real mirth in her eyes. But it's at least, a smile. For now, that's all that matters.  
  
* * *  
  
"Depression?" Val could barely keep the surprise out of her voice. "What do you mean, depression?"  
  
Jamie didn't answer as he sat at the table, his shoulders feeling unusually heavy, his eyes fixed on a scratch in the wood's surface. He had a paper due in for his economics class tomorrow; he hadn't even started. At twenty, he still had not yet learned to fear the wrath of incurring a bad mark, not even from Professor Channing, the elderly but notorious grump of the campus. Jamie felt a sense of guilt pervading him as he struggled with his inner thoughts. Should an economics paper even be straying across his mind, when a more pressing matter was presenting itself at hand? Contrary to the right answer, it was. Life didn't always make sense.  
  
"I don't understand," Val was saying. She wrung her hands as she paced up and down the worn carpet. "Why didn't I see...the signs?"  
  
"They can't always be detected easily." Joanna Lanier looked up at her daughter, concern and sympathy mixed on her face.  
  
"But I would've known," Val insisted, bringing her palms to her forehead. Noticing the silence of the young man seated at the table, she turned to him. "Jamie? Are you OK?"  
  
"I've got a paper due," he mumbled, lifting himself out of the chair. "I've gotta go."  
  
He left the Lanier house without a backward glance.  
  
* * *  
  
It's been six months since he last saw her laugh, and even longer since she's felt happy. Eleven months since she first started feeling inadequate and worthless. He watches her fidget with her sleeves, the light gray of the wool accentuating her pale, drab skin tone. She hasn't been outside for weeks.  
  
* * *  
  
Jamie's head began to ache. There was just too much information to absorb in too little time. What was the meaning behind all of this? Why couldn't someone just give him a clear-cut answer instead of leading him around on this never-ending roundabout of facts and statistics?  
  
"...a type of depressive disorder...most probably major depression...recurrence rate is high...may be unipolar depression..."  
  
"Unipolar depression?" he managed to croak.  
  
The counselor stopped talking, and looked over at Alex Freeman, who seemed to nod slightly to himself before fixing his gaze on Jamie.  
  
"Ever heard of bipolar disorder?" Dr. Freeman's voice was quieter than usual, but clearly audible. "Unipolar depression is a type of major depression that occurs without the manic phase of the disorder. So it's just the-"  
  
"Depressive phase," Jamie finished for him. He'd heard the D-word one too many times.  
  
"She might not have that though, Jamie. She hasn't been fully diagnosed just yet."  
  
He felt himself sinking lower into a black pit of the unknown, and distinctly knew that the safety rope of assurance and empty words wasn't enough. Nothing was enough. The rope would soon slip from his grasp. He could feel it.  
  
"Here's a website you can go to," the counselor pressed a small piece of paper into his hand. "It might help you sort out the details of what's going on. You'll understand everything we've just talked about a bit better."  
  
No rope. Nothing in his hands. Nothing but a web address.  
  
* * *  
  
The attendants make him nervous, the way they hover, watching his every move out of the corner of their eyes. He only comes because of her. While they watch him, he watches her. She's lost weight and her eyes have a vacant look to them. She eats little, and says less. She cries a lot. Sometimes, she spends the whole fifteen minutes of their time crying. But not today.  
  
* * *  
  
Val stood uncertainly in his dorm room. It was the only place that provided them with some privacy. She stared at a purple sweater, draped carelessly at the end of the bed, almost hidden by the covers, and recognized it immediately. She'd bought it for her best friend a year ago. Jamie followed her gaze, but didn't explain.  
  
"Has she called you?"  
  
Jamie nodded his head, and at once, regretted his action as Val's face visibly crumpled. He looked away, not knowing how to amend the situation.  
  
"What'd she say?" Val finally asked.  
  
"That she likes the view from her room," he answered quickly, not mentioning the more morbid details. Like how she'd also said that the colour of the sky reminded her of death. There was no need to repeat that part.  
  
Val put a hand over her mouth and closed her eyes. He felt as if he should go over and offer some sort of comfort, but he instead stayed where he was. They weren't good enough friends to do that. He'd spent two years working alongside her on the squad, but after that, they'd mutually drifted further apart. They'd only ever had one direct connection.  
  
"The last time I talked to her," Val spoke up shakily. "Was the day before she was taken...got admitted."  
  
Jamie looked up again. There weren't a lot of ways to phrase the action, just as there weren't many words for 'hospital'. It was a word that they often omitted subconsciously in their conversations about her. Because 'hospital' didn't and never would associate with her.  
  
"She sounded so...anguished," Val went on, opening her eyes to stare at a spot on his carpet. "She kept saying she didn't want to go, and how she'd never be able to sleep in that place..."  
  
The blonde pre-med student squeezed her eyelids shut, but not before two tears had escaped from behind them. A wrenching sob followed, as Val fought to keep her emotions in check to no avail. Jamie crossed the room quickly, and then stopped short next to her, hesitantly placing a hand on her back. Val's head fell onto his shoulder, soaking it in seconds. Physical consolation was better than nothing.  
  
"I didn't help her enough, Jamie," Val choked out in a strained whisper. "I didn't see it."  
  
Neither did I, Jamie thought to himself. Neither did I.  
  
* * *  
  
Her fingers finally fall still onto the table, splayed out as if she is examining them. He stares at them, their bloodless quality almost scaring him and in contrast, the dark black polish, chipped beyond repair on the short, ragged nails. He glances up at her, and meets two hazel eyes, dull in color and intensity, but just as large as they've always been. Possibly more so now that her face is gaunt-like, and her cheeks hollow.  
  
* * *  
  
"I'm scared," Val whispered.  
  
"That's understandable," Tyler wrapped an arm around his girlfriend's shoulders. "We're all worried about her."  
  
"No, I'm scared of..." she broke off, preferring to stare at the figure standing halfway down the hall.  
  
"Of what?" Tyler pressed gently, hearing the elevator door slide close behind them.  
  
"Of seeing her." Her voice was barely above mute.  
  
"Hi, Jamie," Tyler greeted the figure standing outside the hospital room.  
  
Val didn't look at him. All she saw was the purple sweater he held in his hand, the same one she'd seen draped at the end of his bed the last time they'd talked. Jamie's hand was almost white from gripping the piece of clothing so tightly.  
  
"Here," he said abruptly, handing her the sweater. "It's her favorite color."  
  
She nodded in response, taking the item before turning towards the room, Tyler's hand on her back.  
  
* * *  
  
When she speaks, she never mentions the purple sweater, or whether or not she still has it. He never asks about it. He never asks about her other visitors either, and she never inquires about the outside world. Their friends...her friends. He gazes at her hair, now almost the length of her back. She lets it fall freely, makes no effort to dress it up. He tells her it looks nice.  
  
* * *  
  
"Why?" Jamie's heart was beating fast and he stared at Val with a newfound sense of dislike.  
  
"Jamie, I just-" she began. She looked close to tears. "It's too difficult...she doesn't want me there."  
  
"Did she tell you that?" he demanded, gazing at the blonde, who sat in one of the plastic waiting room chairs. "Did she?"  
  
Val started to cry, predictably. Jamie closed his eyes for a moment. He was getting tired of this routine. Already it seemed too familiar.  
  
"I don't know- I'm just...she won't," Val sputtered through her tears, not making any logical sense.  
  
Tyler had stepped into the picture, reaching out to comfort the distressed Val, while glaring at Jamie silently. His eyes flashed, Back Off. Leave Her Alone. It's Not Her Fault.  
  
"Val," Jamie lowered his voice so as to not attract the attention of the nearby nurses. "She does want you come. You know she does."  
  
"I don't know if I can," came the weak response.  
  
"She's your best friend. Of course you can."  
  
A short silence filled the waiting room before,  
  
"I don't know if I want to."  
  
Behind the anger that immediately raged through him, Jamie felt himself fall deeper into the black pit. He was alone now. There was no one else there.  
  
* * *  
  
They have five minutes left. He doesn't have anything else to say. So he doesn't. They've discovered silence is comforting. But today, silence is more than comforting. It's also their conversation. Not the one-sided verbal dialogue. The real conversation. Hazel eyes connect with brown. Today, she's talking.  
  
* * *  
  
"You have fifteen minutes." The attendant stared at the spiky-haired youth, clad in a leather jacket. Hooligans.  
  
"Great," Jamie mumbled under his breath, following the woman's wide back through the hall, filled with tables and uncomfortable-looking chairs.  
  
The place was a big change from the hospital. It somewhat reminded him of juvie. Or jail. Not that he'd ever been in jail. Knock wood. The other visitors didn't give him a second glance, but some of the patients' eyes lingered on him long after he passed their tables. The attendant motioned to one of the tables, and he sat down.  
  
He didn't know whether or not she'd want to see him. She might've preferred her family. Or Val. Or not. He sighed inwardly. The gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach didn't allow him breakfast that morning. Breakfast. He wondered if she'd eaten yet.  
  
"Caitlin Roth," another attendant announced, while the wide-backed attendant led a small figure towards him.  
  
"Caitie..." he breathed, as she came closer.  
  
She didn't sit in the chair opposite him. Instead, she just stood there, while tears streamed down her cheeks. Silent crying was the most painful way to cry, Jamie knew. He pushed back his chair, moving to hug her.  
  
"No physical contact," the woman barked.  
  
No physical contact, Jamie repeated to himself hopelessly, as he stood still, at a loss for what to do. The hospital was better than this place.  
  
* * *  
  
Her eyes seem a little less blank than they were twelve minutes ago. If eyes are windows to the soul, it must mean that her soul is trapped behind a pane of loneliness. Loneliness and fear. He wants to tell her that she's going to be OK, but he realizes that he doesn't know this for sure. From beneath the hazel, he can see that she isn't sure either. He also knows she's already seen his uncertainty. For the life of him, he can't hide it from her. She always wants the truth.  
  
* * *  
  
"Pity about your visit." The female attendant, who had led him in, turned to look at Jamie behind her. "Maybe next time, huh?"  
  
Jamie nodded mutely. He knew she thought it'd been a waste of his time. Caitie had refused to sit down at the table, and had hit one of the attendants when he tried to make her. She'd been taken back to her room after only three minutes. Jamie hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye. Or hello for that matter.  
  
"Have a good day."  
  
The attendant disappeared around the corner, leaving Jamie to see himself out.  
  
* * *  
  
He waits. She looks up at him, and there's a slight questioning in her eyes. He smiles at her, a small smile. And waits. Her eyes look confused, but she comes around and understands. Her lips move slowly, as if they've forgotten the action. And maybe they have. But she wills them to keep moving.  
  
(The black pit lightens. Slightly. Just enough for him to sense something. Something like hope.)  
  
His smile grows wider, encouraging hers to grow. She is unsure of herself; he's leading her to a place she hasn't been since...too long ago to remember. It's too sudden, but she wants to keep going. She knows it's better than the dark recesses she has grown used to.  
  
(The air around him is suddenly plentiful, signaling that he can't be in too deep anymore. It's still black, but there's an end. He knows it.)  
  
And then, she smiles. It's the first he's seen in months. Her lips barely stretch, and there is no real mirth in her eyes. But it's at least, a smile. For now, that's all that matters.  
  
A/N. Did that suck? The title is in no relation to the song Smile by Olive, which was used in the IaHB episode Hero...in case anyone was wondering...I have no idea how I linked the two. Gonna go now. 


End file.
